


Sister of a Knight

by Onehelluvapilot



Series: Knights and Hunters [6]
Category: Merlin (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Break Up, Family Fluff, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 18:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17126132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onehelluvapilot/pseuds/Onehelluvapilot
Summary: Lancelot goes home, alone, after a bad day.Major Character death occurs only in a dream.





	Sister of a Knight

Sarah opened the door after turning on the porchlight and checking out the window. Her brother stood outside, huddled deep into a long coat against the rain.

“You look awful,” she pointed out when he came inside. He was favoring his right leg, there was a deep blue bruise over his eye, and thin cuts covered his face.

“Precautions,” he reminded her, meaning the flask of holy water and silver knife he had her keep in the closet by the door.

“Look, I know it's you,” she said, annoyed about his little procedures. “A shapeshifter or demon wouldn't turn up in your body in the middle of the night looking like this, and it wouldn't know to remind me about that. Plus, I've known you for thirty years. I don't need to splash water in your face or cut you every time you come into the house to know my little brother.”

“I just want you to be safe,” Lancelot explained, though he gave in this time in favor of letting Sarah take his coat.

“Well, frankly, I couldn't hope to fight anything like that even if I did identify it. I'm not a hunter, and I'm not going to live in fear like one. There's the devil's trap underneath the doormat and every rug in the house, the house is covered with salt paint, and I have the numbers of two dozen hunters in my phone to call if I do trap something. That should be enough. Now come sit down before you fall down,” she ordered, marching him into the kitchen. He lowered himself carefully into one of the chairs beside the table. “Have you patched yourself up adequately, or do I need to pull out the sewing kit?”

“It's fine. The skinwalker didn't get me that badly.”

“Hey! What's my rule about not talking shop in the house?” she barked, sounding a helluva lot like their mother. “I don't want to hear it.”

Sarah was one of many supernatural attack survivors who didn't deny the existence of monsters, but chose to ignore instead of acknowledge it. She just wanted a normal life back.

“Sorry,” he apologized, feeling like a chastized kid again.

“Don't be sorry, be better,” she retorted, less harshly as she pressed a hot mug of non-caffeinated tea into his hands and sat down next to him. “Now, what's on your mind?”

“Trying not to think at the moment actually,” he said, laughing without humor. His eyes glistened in the low light. “Today has been a… bad day.”

“Bad day like you used to have?” There had been a lot that she had helped him through. 

“Yeah. Bad day like that. I’m not- not holding up very well.”

“What can I do?”

“Do you have work early tomorrow?” Typical of him to consider her well-being before his own.

“Yeah,” she admitted. “But Tazzy wakes up every night anyway. I plan for sitting up for a few hours during the night already and go to bed at like eight to make sure I still get enough rest. So if you want me to stay up with you, I'm here.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course. Do you want to talk?”

“I don't know how to keep going,” Lance said, his voice tight but not yet breaking. “Without Gwaine. I can't do this by myself. I almost got myself killed today.” He left out the details of the bloodshed. “Next time it might be worse. There might not be a time after that.”

“Is there a way for you to get someone else to work with?” Sarah asked, ever practical. She did reach out and take ahold of his hand, squeezing it gently.

“Ellen might be able to hook me up with someone,” Lancelot agreed. His voice was steady, his tears silent apart from a tiny splash as each one fell into the teacup he was bent over. “She’d find me someone dependable, I'm sure, but I don’t know if I’d be able to trust them.” His careful word choice reflected how it might be his own fear and paranoia more than untrustworthiness on the part of the other.

“Could you-” Sarah started, but broke off when the stairs creaked. She turned to see Tazzy, standing just at the edge of the kitchen light.

“Mama? Who're you talking to?” The little girl asked from the bottom of the stairs. Her mother didn't have to answer as the man seated next to her turned around in his chair. “Uncle Lancey?” The child queried as she approached him. “What're you doing here?”

“Hey pumpkin. How're you doing?” he asked to avoid her question. She ignored his right back.

“Where's Uncle Gwaine?”

“He, uh, couldn't make it this time,” Lancelot only kind of lied. It had been months since they broke up, but he didn't want to tell the child just yet. It still hurt, especially on nights like this.

“Why're you crying?” Tazzy asked, reaching up to where his eyes are red and swollen. She didn’t comment on the bruising around the left one. “Are you sad?”

“Yeah honey, sometimes,” he agreed. He hated the idea of making her worry about him, but he knew lying would be worse. It must've been terrible for her in that other world, when suddenly her uncle started acting different. His own nightmares and the panic attacks. The version of him that had lived in it before, the cop rather than the soldier, hadn't suffered from PTSD, so from Tazzy's perspective, he'd changed overnight.

“I get sad too sometimes,” she whispered, as though she was telling a secret. “But Mama helps me think about the good things and then I'm not happy exactly but not sad anymore either.”

“Yeah, that's what your mama is trying to help me with right now. Why don't you go back go bed honey bunches?”

“Will you still be here in the morning?”

“Yeah, I think so. Goodnight sweetheart.”

“Goodnight uncle Lancelot.” The little girl in her Lion King pajamas kissed her uncle on the rough stubble on his jaw before going back upstairs.

“She's a sweet kid,” he sighed, settling back down into the uncomfortable kitchen chair. “Despite being through so much. You've done right raising her.”

“Thanks, I really need my younger unmarried brother without children telling me that,” she teased in reply.

“She wasn't like that when I tried to take care of her, in the alternate timeline,” Lancelot said quietly, both reminding her that he did, in a weird way, have experience with parenting but also admitting that he hadn't been excellent at it.

“Those were rather strenuous circumstances though,” she encouraged him. She still had her hand on the back of his, rubbing her thumb down the side of it and squeezing gently. It had taken about a month after the djinn incident for Lancelot to come back to Raleigh, though he’d called Sarah on the phone nearly every night. She had made him explain what was wrong when he started crying upon seeing Tazzy, and though he had left out many of the details, she knew mostly what had happened and how it affected him. “Is it weird for you, to be here?”

“When she came down just now, my first instinct was to hide the gun.”

Sarah hated hearing that from her little brother, thinking about the nights he sat up trying to, or maybe trying not to, kill himself at her kitchen table. But he clearly needed to talk. He wore that same look as he’d worn just after he’d gotten discharged. That haunted look she’d heard her friends who were the wives of soldiers talk about but hadn’t been prepared to see on the face of her little brother.

“She surprised me sometimes, when she woke up quietly.” Not screaming, he meant. “She'd ask me how my day went, and I always had to lie because it was always something horrific. I don't think it's actually like that, being a cop, because pretty much every murder victim was torn to pieces. This was more like being a hunter with paperwork.”

“Well that's over now. The only thing we have to hide is the ice cream,” Sarah tried to joke.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, it's okay.”

“It's not though. When I came home, what made everything worse is that I knew I was hurting you. And I don't think me talking now is doing any good for either of us.”

“Well, if you don't want to talk, you should get some rest. We both should,” Sarah said, standing up. “There's already sheets on the guest bed. I've started leaving the room made up.”

“Thanks sis.”

“Have a good night, Lancelot." She took his head in her hands and pressed a kiss to his forehead like he had done for her daughter. "If you need anything, don't hesitate to come to me. I'll see you in the morning.”

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if anyone is still reading this series, but if you are, drop a comment. I love reading them.


End file.
